Goddess of the Moon
by Rat Mouse
Summary: Anouk’s parents have long since passed into legend. Now the one she serves has released her and she isn’t quite sure what will become of one lonely little girl who long ago forgot the world.


Note: This is actually a somewhat crossover because the characters that Anouk refers to as her parents are from The Dragon Queen by Alice Borchardt. It's only somewhat, though, since the actual characters from the book are not in it. It's a good book, though. Everyone should go read it if they want to read a new type of Arthurian legend that's absolutely amazing.

Anouk's parents have long since passed into legend. Now the one she serves has released her and she isn't quite sure what will become of one lonely little girl who long ago forgot the world.

**Moon Goddess**

My parents, they were not like everyone else's parents. I knew this long ago, but now it only seems more apparent to me.

My mother was the chosen queen of the dragons, a thing that has now passed into legend. Though, she was not the woman that raised me, I knew I was hers. It was written on my skin.

My father, well, he was a wolf who was sometimes a man and I knew I was his because I was a wolf who was sometimes a woman.

I took after them both, they just didn't realize it for a long time.

I knew them as they were but the rest of the world remembers them in legends they all think are faerie tales. The rest of the world knows them as Gwenhwyvar and Lancelot. And the woman who raised me, she was the Lady of the Lake.

The world I live in today knows me as Anouk because that's what my grandfather called me. He told me that I would forever be in his favor so he might as well call me by it. Though, when I was still young I called myself Lyulf for a time. That only lasted until my father told me it was a boy's name and I was not a boy, no matter how much I thought it at the time.

I have no real surname, my father never had one to give me, but I found my own some time much later in my life, long after we had gone our separate ways.

I met a man on the shores who took to calling me Manadis. He called me moon goddess because that's what I was to him. I was the goddess of the moon in his eyes, completely enchanting. I think, perhaps, he might have fancied me like a man fancies a woman but I would not have noticed, She had already taken me into Her service.

Manadis, I think it fits me.

So I served the world as Anouk Manadis most of the time after, and shieldmaiden to Her when She called for it.

I set my life down before Her one night, long ago, for a woman that I had barely met. I changed fate that day for the dragon queen and in return She took me into Her service for many more years than most shall live.

Dis embraced me to her bosom that night and I became her unflinching valkerie.

For over a thousand years I fought for Her, and dealt death for Her. No man on earth was my equal. Dis made sure I would want for none of them in return, though I knew this was so I could remain hers.

I was nearly immortal because of my father, but I was nearly a goddess because of Her.

Then one day she released me and I woke up.

* * *

_I walked along a plane of sun sweetened grass that was nothing but a pale gold in the hypnotizing light of the perfect moon gazing down upon me from the sky. I took comfort in that moon, though I did not know where I was going or where I had been. There was no end to this vast sea of grass as far as I could see, and I could see far, I knew. Despite this I kept walking, the moon compelled me so. Then there before me swelled up_ _a single sturdy tree in this vast nothingness. I came upon it before I even had a chance to notice it but was not startled, there was no need to be. "Why am I here" my voice spilled out into the nothingness as a soft wind. _

"_Because I asked you to be" came the answer from my left where I knew She stood, hand gently resting upon the tree. _

"_I have been here before." It was not a question as it should have been_

"_yes" Her silvery voice flowed over and through me, warming my limbs as nothing else could and I remembered. She had brought me to this place for the first time the night I called Her to me. This is where I gave over my life for the mother I had met only a handful of times and She first embraced me._

_I accepted Her answer for the moment, waiting for more in the silence that settled over us._

"_There is more"_ _I told Her, breaking the moment to try and disperse the unsettled air that had slipped into me during Her silence. _

"_Yes" was the simple answer She gave me again. And I waited._

"_Your time with me is at an end."_

_I did not understand._

"_My time is at an end"_

_I understood this time but was unwilling to believe Her words._

"_The people no longer need me. Times have changed to a world of science, without gods."_

_This, I knew, was true. The world now was made up of technology and no longer natural. I began to believe._

_She turned to me now and I was forced to look into Her face. The face of both maiden and crone, the face of all women, everywhere all at once. For once I could not look away from the near nauseating metamorphosis that was her face. "Your time with me is at an end" She restated. _

_She was freeing me. I was no longer to be Hers._

_She smiled at me while placing a hand on either side of my face. Warmth rushed through me at the comforting gesture, saturating my limbs with a heat I did not understand."I will be here if _you_ need me" _

_She kissed my forehead and was gone. _

_I was left in an ocean of sun sweetened grass with the moon as my guide._

* * *

I opened my eyes to the soft hue of the sun that were filled with only a distant mockery of light.

It smelt like rain but I was more concerned with the haphazard way I had thrown myself across my bed. My feet were sprawled off the end and my head tilted off the side to take in the grain of the floor below me.

When had I gone to sleep?

I blinked and looked around me once before I realized the haze that had existed between me and the world had lifted. Dis had released me.

I felt empty without really comprehending it, and knew, for once in my life, this was how the rest of the world felt. I rolled ungracefully out of bed with a solid thump as I hit the floor.

My hand floated into my vision above me and I could only stare, entranced by it through the muddled depth of my mind.

I could feel Her taint almost gone from me and wasn't quite sure if I wanted it to leave just yet. I had been Hers for longer than I had been on my own and wasn't quite sure what to do with myself for the moment.

* * *


End file.
